


let there also be hope

by annelesbonny



Category: The Magicians (TV)
Genre: Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Light Angst, M/M, Prompt Fill, Sorta kinda, idiots to lovers, sheer absolute fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-29
Updated: 2019-07-29
Packaged: 2020-07-25 19:33:45
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,642
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20031181
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/annelesbonny/pseuds/annelesbonny
Summary: things you said when you thought I was asleep--“You love me. You love me not. You love me. You love me not.”Eliot sighs, drops his head against the back of the couch and tries not to think about...things. It’s a little hard to do when “things” is currently sleeping on his bicep, breathing softly into his armpit.Quentin’s hair is a little longer now, and Eliot is big enough to admit that’s probably due to his own subliminal messaging. What can he say, he likes a little something more to grab on to. Not that there’s been any grabbing going on to speak of, not for awhile now, not since Eliot’s been— back. Honestly, the fact that he’s even gettingthis, Q slumped over and snoring on his arm, is nothing short of a miracle.





	let there also be hope

**Author's Note:**

> thanks to [official-mermaid](https://official-mermaid.tumblr.com/) for the prompt! I've never done a prompt fill before so this was super fun.

** _let there also be hope_ **

  
  


“You love me. You love me not. You love me. You love me not.”

Eliot sighs, drops his head against the back of the couch and tries not to think about...things. It’s a little hard to do when “things” is currently sleeping on his bicep, breathing softly into his armpit. 

Quentin’s hair is a little longer now, and Eliot is big enough to admit that’s probably due to his own subliminal messaging. What can he say, he likes a little something more to grab on to. Not that there’s been any grabbing going on to speak of, not for awhile now, not since Eliot’s been— back. Honestly, the fact that he’s even getting  _ this, _ Q slumped over and snoring on his arm, is nothing short of a miracle. 

The last nine weeks have been rough, for lack of a better word. Or, a better word isn’t lacking so much as all the appropriate ones are too depressing for Eliot to think about right now, words like ‘agonizing’ or ‘heartbreaking’ or ‘soul-rending’.

More than anything though, it’s just been  _ hard. _ And it’s  _ hurt, _ more than he ever imagined it could. The averted eye contact, the poorly stifled flinches, and the fun, careful dance they’ve been engaging in, the one that ensures that Margo or Julia or Alice, even Penny or Kady are in whatever room Quentin’s in if Eliot happens to be there as well. There’s only so much Eliot can do (see: nothing at fucking  _ all _ ) when it’s his presence, his body that’s the problem in the first place. 

He can’t undo the damage done by the monster, but he’ll love Quentin through it anyways. 

The apartment is empty now, save for them. Margo is in Fillory with Fen and Josh, Kady’s tits-deep in a hedge rebellion, Alice is in Modesto for some fucking reason, and 23’s sulking after Julia, who’s off somewhere doing demigoddess related activities. So that leaves Eliot, neck growing stiff from the awkward position against the too short couch, and Quentin, who’d somehow how found his way from his earlier position several cushions down to drooling on Eliot’s silk sleeve. He knows he should move Quentin, get him settled on a pillow or something, cover him with that tiny yellow throw he likes so much and take himself out of the room because Quentin’s not conscious to do it himself. 

Because one of them has to leave; that’s how the story goes. 

But Eliot is a selfish man, and Quentin Coldwater, soft and sweet, asleep on his shoulder is not something he possesses the capacity to resist. He just doesn’t have it in him anymore. The denial and the resisting and the self-sabotage is what got them here in the first place, and while he doesn’t know if he can fix it, or even if there’s anything  _ left  _ to fix, what he does know is that he is far too selfish a man to accept an ending like this. 

If the last time he kissed Quentin is a memory, there isn’t a single part left of his heart to break.

“You know, I dreamt of you when I was— when I was gone,” Eliot says softly, speaking more to the ceiling than the man sleeping against his arm. “That’s what it felt like; a dream. A dream about a memory of something else. No wonder I came to with such an atrocious headache. That’s not the point though. The point is. Well.” He laughs a little, and closes his eyes. 

“I guess the point is, I love you. And soon I’ll be brave enough to say it to your face. Promise,” he whispers. 

Nine weeks and he still hasn’t said it. He’d like to put all the blame on Quentin’s avoidance act, but that isn’t fair. Because Eliot is a selfish man, not a brave one. 

“I can pretend to be asleep again if you’d like to practice some more.”

Eliot’s eyes fly open and he sits up so fast Quentin almost falls off the couch. Eliot catches him, of course, but it would have served the fake-sleeping, declaration-hearing  _ traitor  _ right. 

“Q, what the _ hell. _ ” 

His voice drops into an unhappy growl and his face feels hot. Quentin blinks up at him sleepily, face lightly lined from where he’d pressed into Eliot’s side. He still looks more tired than Eliot likes, but there’s a mischievous look in his eyes that’s been missing for so long, bringing back a little of that light Eliot loves so goddamn much, that he wondered if he’d ever really see again. 

“Sorry.” Quentin doesn’t sound sorry  _ at all _ , the unrepentant brat. “You’re just so much more relaxed when, um, you don’t have to look at me or when you think I can’t hear you. But I really was sleeping for most of it.”

Eliot slouches back against the couch, summons his most unconvincing glare. “What did you hear?”

Quentin bites at his bottom lip, cheeks taking on a delightful blush. “Oh. Just, ah, about the dreams and, um, that you— love me, I guess.”

“That was  _ all of it, _ Quentin!” 

Quentin starts to curl in on himself, away from Eliot, which is the last thing in the entire fucking multiverse that he wants at any given time. 

“Fuck. Sorry.” He reaches for Q, pathetically grateful when it’s accepted, and he doesn’t think he imagines the soft, little sigh from Quentin as he lays his hand carefully on the junction where neck and shoulder meet. “I’m not mad, Q, I’m—  _ Fuck. _ How am I so goddamn bad at this.” 

It’s not a question, but Quentin answers anyway. 

“A lifetime and a half of repression coupled with a shitload of trauma?” He offers with a tiny smile. 

“Hey, I thought I did alright at the mosaic.” Eliot feels the need to defend himself at least a little. 

“El, we were practically married. We had an _ actual kid _ together, and you said that you loved me exactly  _ once  _ over the course of fifty years _ . _ ”

Eliot inhales sharply; unfortunately, he knows exactly what moment Quentin’s referring to despite his best efforts to forget. 

_ Q, baby, please. I love you. Come back. You have to come back. _

“You never told me you heard that. You were— I thought you were—” Even now, over fifty years and at least one alternate timeline later, Eliot still struggles to say it. 

“Dying?” Quentin touches his hand to draw out the sting. “I was sick, not deaf, Eliot. And you practically shouted it in my ear.”

“Yeah, well, I was fucking terrified so,” Eliot says, jaw clenched tight against the memory of Q, death-pale and impossibly small on their bed, caught in the thrall of a vicious Fillorian fever that had already killed at least two people in the village. 

Teddy had been beside himself, the memory of Arielle still too fresh in his little boy mind, and he’d  _ clung  _ to Eliot in the early days, refusing to let him out of his sight or beyond his reach. When Quentin had gotten worse, he’d finally broken and allowed Ari’s mother to take him for a few days. It had almost killed him, watching his son have to be carried away from him, almost ten years old and crying desperately for his fathers. 

Q got better, of course, but there’d been a moment before the fever finally broke when Eliot truly thought he wasn’t going to make it, that Quentin was going to leave him alone. He remembers crawling over Q and wrapping his arms around him, adding body heat to the stifling mound of blankets on top of Quentin’s slender, shivering frame. Remembers shoving his face into damp, curling hair and pressing kiss after kiss to the soft skin behind Quentin’s ear, feeling more useless and terrified than he ever had in his entire life.

_ Q, baby, please. I love you. Come back. You have to come back. _

But that was in the past of a life they never got to live. This is the present of the life they’re still figuring out  _ how  _ to live, and in this life, Quentin sighs and looks down at his lap. 

“I know. That’s why I never mentioned it then, and why I almost— almost didn’t say anything this time either,” Quentin says quietly, still looking down.

Suddenly, Eliot can’t stand not being able to see his eyes for this so he moves his hand until his fingers are under Quentin’s chin, tilting upwards. 

“So, why did you?” Eliot asks. 

_ What made this time different? Tell me what made you brave so I can be it too. _

Quentin finally looks at him. “Because I love you. And I— I let it win. The monster. Every time I don’t look at you or flinch away from you or make one of our friends stay in a room if you were already in it, I was letting the monster win. It didn’t want me to love you, Eliot. Hated that I did. It wanted me to give up on you and I think, I think if I’d let you get away with avoiding this again, then I would be. Giving up. Um, so I love you and you— I know you love me too.”

And then,  _ and fucking then, _ Quentin raises his chin in a clear, familiar challenge and Eliot, well, he’s big enough to admit that he fucking  _ melts. _

Because Quentin loves him, he loves him and he’s daring Eliot to love him back, to love him honestly. Eliot’s always enjoyed a good dare. 

His thumb strokes the gentle crest of that stubborn chin, watches as Quentin’s beautiful eyes flutter shut for a moment. Eliot leans in until his mouth hovers just over Quentin’s, their breaths the only thing left between them. 

“Open your eyes,” he whispers. “I love you.”


End file.
